


Lean on Me

by TeekiJane



Series: The Boys of Summer [19]
Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeekiJane/pseuds/TeekiJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byron’s always gone to Adam for advice. He’s not sure how to take it when the situation is the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lean on Me

_If there is a load_  
_You have to bear that you can’t carry_  
_I’m right up the road, I’ll share your load_  
_If you just call me_  
Bill Withers, Lean on Me

**Byron**

I was all alone in my bedroom for the first time in a while. I hadn’t been spending much time there unless I was sleeping, partly because Nick had always been holed up inside…unless he was downstairs playing video games. But today he’d begged my mom to take him out. She’s been trying to get him to get a haircut and some new clothes, and he actually took her up on the offer. I’d heard a small part of the conversation, including the words “Maria” and “impress.” I’d shaken my head and moved on, having a hard time believing my ears. 

I’d realized I had less than a month until I left for Duke and I’d had a minor panic attack about that. Mom was trying to find a day when Jordan, Adam and I could all head down to Kitchen  & Bath together. They had a service where you pick out everything you need for college and they deliver it to the store near your school. Mom was hoping to deal with all three of us in one fell swoop. I had a feeling she was overestimating how easy this would be. 

It made me wish I had someone to talk to at that minute. Hay had invited everyone over to watch _Clerks_ \--one of her favorite movies which she had insisted Jeff and I _had_ to see—but Jordan was scheduled to work. He’d joined her for the afternoon before he had to go to the Rosebud and had forbidden the rest of us from arriving until after he left. I knew her parents had taken Matt off to camp and would be gone all day. I shuddered to think about what Jordan and Hay were doing all alone in her house. 

And then there was Jeff. Ever since we’d gotten in trouble, he’d been shying away from me. I ached inside over it. We’d gotten so close—both physically and, I thought, emotionally—and I could only guess what he was thinking now. At first he’d been grounded, but his stepdad had set him free almost a week ago. He hadn’t called me in all that time, and when I’d called him, he’d found an excuse to get off the phone as quick as possible. 

At first I thought that maybe he was mad at me. I mean, I did fall asleep in his bed and cause this whole mess, right? But then I’d stopped being self-centered and taken a step back. Everyone at work was talking about him. Shari in bedding mentioned that he never smiled any more. Joanie—one of Hay’s “favorite” coworkers—commented that Jeff was sullen and unpleasant, but then again, Joanie never had anything nice to say about anyone. Even “Lissa the insane” came out of her own little world and asked if something was the matter with him. 

I was in a brooding, introspective kind of mood and I needed someone to bounce it all off—my fears about school, my worries about Jeff, even my concerns about Hay and Jordan. I wondered if Adam was home. He’s always a good listener, and his advice is usually at least 51 percent accurate. 

I was just about to head down the hall to Adam and Jordan’s room when someone knocked on my door. “It’s open,” I called half-heartedly. I fully expected it to be someone who wanted me to drive them somewhere—I get that a lot—but I was a little surprised. 

Adam peeked his head through the door. He looked absolutely wretched, like he hadn’t slept in a couple days. “You got a few minutes?” he asked. His hair was sticking out at all angles like he hadn’t combed it, and that’s how I knew that, whatever his problem was, it was serious. Adam’s one of those guys who can’t be “seen” if he’s not properly groomed. 

I gave him my most serious look. “For you? Always. Come on in and have a seat.” I had been pacing, but I took a seat in my desk chair. Adam came all the way in the door and closed it behind him. 

He looked around the room before he chose Nick’s bed as a seat. “Why is this room so neat? You trying to make the rest of us look bad?” 

I shrugged. “I’ve been hiding in here being angsty all morning. When I angst, I clean.” 

Adam looked tense. “What do you have to be angsting about anyway?” he asked. 

I shrugged again. “Nothing I can’t handle in time. You, on the other hand, look like death warmed over. Want to tell me about it?” 

He flopped down on the bed, spreading himself all across Nick’s bedding. I might have cleaned the room, but I didn’t change the sheets on that bed. If it were me, I wouldn’t have wanted to touch those sheets, but it definitely wasn’t the right time to mention that. Adam popped one hand over his eyes and lay there for a moment, not answering. “I’m not sure you can relate,” he said finally, “but then again, I don’t think I know anyone who can really relate to _this._ ”

“Try me.” He didn’t move, and even though he still had his eyes covered, I could read his expression clearly. He didn’t want to say it out loud. I think I must have looked the exact same way when I managed to come out to him in the spring. I leaned forward in my seat. “Adam, spit it out. Trust me. Whatever it is, it’s easier once you say it.” 

He sighed and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Tiff’s pregnant.” 

I sat back hard in my seat. “You’re right,” I said, even though I was not sure I’d heard him right. “That’s not something I can really relate to. I’m pretty sure that I’m about the last person who would ever have that problem.” 

Despite his severe discomfort, he snorted. “Right,” he agreed. He sat up a little bit and finally moved his hand off his eyes. He looked at me for the first time since he’d come in the room and I could tell why he’d covered his eyes—they were red and he looked ready to cry. 

I couldn’t think of the last time I’d seen Adam cry. I want to say it was when he’d broken his leg when we were—was it twelve or thirteen? I was the one prone to sobbing out of the three of us, by far, but Jordan was known to occasionally tear up when he was especially upset about something. I don’t know if Adam just bought more into that macho bull crap society sells, or if he was just more even keeled than Jordan and I were. Or if he just wanted everyone to think he was. 

In any case, it was definitely my turn to play even keeled. Adam looked completely miserable, and my getting worked up definitely wasn’t going to help him. “Pregnant,” I repeated. He winced. “Are you sure?” 

He looked away, his forehead crumpled. “She took three tests,” he announced to the wall. 

I looked up at the ceiling. Adam wasn’t making eye contact, so I figured it didn’t matter where _I_ threw my gaze. “What did Tiff say about…this?” I asked. 

Adam lay back down. “Not much,” he admitted. “She was really too upset to get too many words out.” 

“Did she manage to tell you how she’s leaning? Does she want to keep the baby?” 

I heard a muffled sound and I looked back at him for just a second, just to confirm he was actually crying. Then, out of respect for him, I looked away again. I turned completely away and found myself staring at the photo of me and Jeff on my nightstand. That wasn’t helping—seeing Jeff smiling, my arms around him. 

It was only a short time before Adam cried himself out and sat back up. He wiped his eyes and then went on as if he’d never shed a tear. “I just don’t know, man,” he said, “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do.” I turned back to him, listening intently. “And I don’t think Tiffany knows what she wants to do, either. I really think she wanted me to tell her what to do.” 

He was quiet for a moment, so I spoke. “What did you say to her when she told you that?” 

Adam gathered his knees up in front of him. “I told her that it was her choice, but when she decided what she wanted to do, I’d be there for her one hundred percent—we’d make plans and do it, whatever ‘it’ was, together.” He put his head down on his knees and spoke into them, muffled. “She’s taking the weekend to make up her mind.” 

“Sounds like you said all the right things,” I noted. He mumbled something into his knees. “Tell me something, Adam,” I continued. He looked up. “If you didn’t have to consider anything else—Tiff’s feelings or school or Mom and Dad or anything else—what you want right now? What would you decide to do if you were the one who just found out _you_ were pregnant?” 

He looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to decide what he wanted and then whether I was up to hearing it. “I’m not ready to be a dad,” he said miserably. “I’m not sure I ever want to have kids, ya know? It comes from being raised as—how did you say it?—oh yeah, as part of a herd.” He sighed. “Anyway, I just don’t know about me and Tiff.” 

“What do you mean?” 

He jumped up off the bed and started pacing the room. “Jordan told me he _loves_ Haley. Did you know that?” 

“Yeah. Well, actually Hay told me that she loves him, but I’m pretty sure he said it first.” I watched him making the same circuit I had been making not ten minutes ago. 

He stopped for a moment and watched me. “And what about you and Jeff?” I looked at him blankly, not sure what he meant. “I see how you look at him. I know you—you may not have said it to him, but I know you feel it.” I shook my head, not really disagreeing but not really agreeing either. Adam sagged for a moment and then resumed pacing, tenser than ever. “I didn’t start a relationship with Tiff for…that. I was just looking to have some fun.” 

I smiled very briefly, remembering Jeff removing my clothes carefully but quickly that night—eager but also sensitive. “Well, I can definitely understand that,” I said. 

Adam eyed me sharply. “Sex fucks everything up,” he observed. “Hang on to your virginity, dude. That is assuming you still have it…?”

I didn’t answer that directly. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, deflecting the attention back to the real issue. “Why does how serious your relationship with Tiff is matter?” 

He sat back down again, on my bed this time. I had to turn around in my seat so I could even see him. “When we were talking,” he began, once again hunched over his knees, “she asked me some questions about what would happen if she kept the baby. She made it sound like she wanted to keep the kid…and she wanted us to get married. I don’t think I could do that, no matter what happens.” 

I took a moment to bury my own head in my hands and took a deep breath before I looked back at him. “Well, if she decides she wants to keep the baby, then you’ll just have to sit down with her and hash out all the details. Tell her that. It won’t be the end of the world.” Adam looked over at me, his look indicating he thought I was clueless on this. “Look, are you going to Haley’s this evening?” 

He nodded. “I didn’t want to go, but Tiff insisted. Even with everything we have going on, she’s still desperate to get on Haley’s good side, and since Little Miss used the words ‘peace offering’ to Tiff, there’s no way she wanted to pass that up.” He sighed. “And despite what I said, I can’t deny her what she wants. Especially now.” 

Adam stood to leave and I joined him. I clapped him on the back and opened my mouth to say something inspiring or soothing. But I had no words, really. This was pretty serious and I had a feeling that no matter what way it went down, he was going to end up with a lot of pain. 

He stopped in the doorway. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked me. I shook my head. “I didn’t want to start up anything serious this summer because I didn’t want to leave my heart behind in Stoneybrook, the way Jordan has to.” He rubbed his eyes. “But, depending on what Tiff decides, I may have that problem anyway.” With that, he walked away. 

***

After Adam left, I had one more worry to add to my bank, but I pushed it all aside and focused on the one I felt I could do the most with. I picked up the phone in the hallway and retreated to my empty room, dialing a number from memory. Jeff’s mom answered. “Hello, Mrs. Spier,” I said. 

“Byron? Jeff’s right upstairs. I’ll get him for you in a second.” Jeff’s mom sounded much the same way I felt. “Before I do though, can I ask you for a favor? We’re having family dinner on Tuesday. Mary Anne and Pete are coming, and Richard and I would like it if you were there with Jeff.” I was stunned. I sucked in a breath but Mrs. Spier went on. “To be honest, Byron, I’m a little worried about him. I’ve seen Jeff be happy and sunny before, and I’ve seen him be angry and sullen. But I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s not feeling anything at all.” 

“I know. I see it too.” 

“I knew you did. Being with you always makes Jeff seem so much more alive. Plus, I’d like to get to know you better. So will you come?” 

I thought about my work schedule. “I think I’m free. I’ll have to double check, but if I’m not working I’ll be there.” It might be awkward, but I figured if we were forced to sit down for dinner, we would have to talk. 

I could hear her smile. “Great! Let me go get him.” 

She set the phone down and there was silence for a while. Jeff picked the phone up quietly and for a moment I didn’t even realize he was there. “By?” he said faintly, “You still there?” 

“I’m here.” Jeff usually starts phone conversations with statements like, “What’s up?” He didn’t do anything of the sort this time, though. He just waited for me to go on. I went straight to the point. “Are you coming to Haley’s to watch the movie with us?” I asked. 

He sighed. “I wasn’t planning on it.” It was about four p.m. and he sounded like I’d woken him up. 

I plowed on. “Well, why not? You got a better offer?” I was picturing him sitting at home, making small talk with his mom and stepdad—something I know he’d been trying to do as little as possible all summer long. 

Jeff didn’t answer for a moment. “I just don’t feel like hanging out today. I’m just not up for it.” 

“What’s the matter? It seems like you never feel up to hanging out these days,” I observed. This was answered by complete silence. “C’mon, Jeff,” I pleaded, “For me? I just need to be with you for a couple of hours. We can share a couch cushion on Hay’s couch. You don’t have to say a word beyond ‘hello.’” It was a low blow and I knew it, but I was desperate at this point. “Please?” 

Jeff sucked in a breath. “You are the only person I would let get away with emotional blackmail,” he said morosely. 

“So you’ll come?” 

“Yeah. For a little while. No promises beyond that.” He yawned. “I gotta go.” 

“Yeah, me too. Take care, Jeff. I…” I was cut off by Jeff hanging up prematurely. I finished my sentence out loud to myself, just needing to say it. “I love you,” I told the phone. 

Jeff sounded lifeless, and I pictured him looking as unhappy and uncomfortable as Adam had just now. If we were going to assume that Tiff was also going to be miserable, this was going to be one fun evening. 

***

We were supposed to be at Haley’s after five, but Adam appeared in my doorway again at quarter till. “Ready to go?” he asked. He’d fixed his hair, albeit half-heartedly, with a lot less product than he usually uses. Instead of his usual tight clothes, he wore a baggy t-shirt and a loose pair of jeans. I’m not sure if he’d raided Jordan’s closet or what. 

I gathered up all my belongings. “We’re going to be really early,” I commented. 

Adam shrugged. “I’ve got all my shit together,” he said tersely, “and if we wait fifteen minutes that may no longer be true.” I nodded at him, knowing he wasn’t referring to any physical items. 

We stood outside Hay’s front door for a moment before we rang the bell. The house was wide open—Hay’s a big fan of fresh air when there’s a breeze. We could hear voices coming from the living room in the front of the house. There were some curtains in the windows—all my time at Kitchen  & Bath had taught me that they were called sheers—the thin, translucent kind. Hay and Jordan were standing inside the window and, although they were hazy through the sheers, I could see that he had his arms around her and they were smooching on and off. “I’m going to miss you,” I heard Hay say. 

Jordan kissed her again. “I’m going to miss you more,” he replied. 

“No, I’ll miss _you_ more.” 

Oh my God. They were purely nauseating. This is the kind of thing Adam hates, but when I looked over at him, waiting for him to comment, I realized he wasn’t even listening. He had his hands clenched in front of him and was squeezing the left hand so hard with the right that it looked like it hurt. I finally realized it was up to me to end the goop going on inside the house. “She can’t miss you if you don’t leave,” I called out in a sing-song voice. 

The curtains parted and Hay’s face appeared in the crack, with Jordan’s right behind her. He put his arms around her waist, looking put out. She, on the other hand, appeared amused. “You’re early!” she pouted, hiding a smile. “The door’s open. C’mon in.” 

By the time we made it into the living room, a whole thirty seconds later, Jordan and Hay were back to making out. She was wearing very little clothing—a camisole and a short, thin skirt—and yet she and Jordan were both covered in sweat. I raised an eyebrow at Adam and he shrugged. 

Jordan pulled Haley closer to him one last time and kissed her forehead. “I gotta go, Honey,” he said as he ran his hands down her back. 

She blew him a kiss as he moved to the door. “Love you,” she called. He grinned at her just before he exited. Hay turned to us, a smile etched into her face. 

Adam had plopped down on the couch and was looking over the large assortment of remote controls on the side table. Hay’s mom doesn’t know what most of them are for, but she won’t throw them away in case they come in handy. Hay’s pretty sure one of them is to a TV they threw away before they moved to Stoneybrook…eight years ago. 

Haley looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Tiff coming?” she said. I had trouble believing that she brought Tiffany into the conversation so casually. Obviously she didn’t know what was going on with Adam and Tiff, but last time I’d heard her refer to Tiff aloud, there’d been a few choice curse words thrown in. 

Adam nodded distractedly. “This is the largest collection of remotes I’ve ever seen,” he said. 

Hay giggled. “Matt wants to start a museum with them.” She sounded giddy and the smile was still on her face. “Hey, By, can you help me in the kitchen? I’ve got chips and popcorn, but because you guys were early, they’re not ready to go.” 

I was still standing in the vestibule. “You got it, _Honey_ ,” I said, mocking Jordan just a little. She rolled her eyes at me and headed into the kitchen. I followed, more slowly. 

She was in a sickeningly chipper mood as she handed me a bag of popcorn and gestured wordlessly to the microwave. “What did you and Jordan get up to today?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. I started up the microwave. 

Hay raised an eyebrow. “You sound like me,” she said, almost laughing. I just looked at her as she dumped some Munchies into a bowl. “I was teaching him some yoga moves,” she said finally. 

“I’ll bet.” 

She waggled her eyebrows at me. “You’ve definitely been hanging around with me for too long,” she said with another spate of giggles. Her hair was pulled back on the top half of her head into a ponytail, while the rest of her hair was loose. When she turned to me as she tossed the Munchie bag in the trash, she looked like she was glowing. 

“You didn’t…” I faded out and let that hang there. I knew she knew exactly what I meant. 

She smiled again. “I told you. We were doing yoga.” 

“I always do yoga in a short skirt.” 

Hay pretended to look shocked. “I’d pay to see that,” she quipped. I stopped the microwave and crossed my arms in front of my body. She tipped her head toward me and bumped her hip into my leg. “We went to yoga class, and then we practiced a few of the moves in the living room. Then I changed out of my workout clothes, because I was totally sweaty and gross. And then, maybe, Jordan and I made out on the living room floor for a while…” 

I pretended I hadn’t heard the last part. “You dragged Jordan to a yoga class?” I repeated. 

She smirked. “Actually, he asked if he could come. He said he needed to mellow out a bit.” 

I raised my eyebrows to that. “As if you two didn’t get mellow enough when you got back here.” 

Hay giggled again. “What has got you so nosy these days?” she asked. “Usually, when the topic of Jordan and me comes up, you put your hands over your ears and hum something that sounds…churchy.” 

I had to smile at that, because it was at least a little bit true. “I worry about you, you know.” 

She cocked her head to one side, and I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or what. In any case, she sobered up, losing the giggly smile. “Why? I can take care of myself,” she said seriously. 

“I know. But I have a feeling you told the same thing to Vanessa before…” I paused and bit my lip. Even I couldn’t believe I’d just said that, but it had slipped out. It was basically the culmination of three months of worry, always in the back of my head. Even though I knew Jordan was treating Haley like a china doll, I’d heard stories about him and other girls. Lots of stories. 

Hay pursed her lips. “That was different,” she said, looking downward and not making eye contact. 

“Oh yeah?” 

She looked up and tried to read my expression. I don’t know what she saw, but for some reason she softened. “Jordan isn’t Dominick, By. Not by a long shot. For starters, he knows the meaning of the word ‘no.’” She gave me a hug and let go. “Look, earlier today, when we were really sweaty, Jordan suggested I should just take my shirt off.” I raised my eyebrows. “I told him no and he was completely okay with that. It’s not that I’ll never take my top off for him. It’s just,” she paused and made a face. I wasn’t sure if she was shying away from the idea of what she was going to say or if the actual thought made her slightly ill. “It’s just that I didn’t get to decide when any of my firsts were. Dominick never took my shirt off, so _I_ get to decide when that happens. And it has to be _my_ idea.” Now that the words were said, she smiled again, a little happier. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, “because I told Jordan that if he ever hurt you, I’d kick his ass. But you and I both know that if I ever tried, I’m the one who’d get beaten to a pulp.” 

The smile from before started to creep back across her face. The doorbell rang—both an audible ding-dong and a flashing of lights. “Adam, can you get that?” Hay called. She gave me a bowl and I finally removed the popcorn from the microwave. We gathered up all the snacks but then she stopped. “I have one last comment that should make you feel even better on that topic, okay? Jordan…” she stopped, shaking her head. “This was said to me in confidence, so you can’t tell anyone, alright? Jordan and his friends from the Faith League took virginity pledges. He and I promised each other that we’re going to take things very slowly and make all these decisions together. Does that sound like someone you have to worry about?” 

Hay didn’t wait for me to answer; instead she took the popcorn and Munchies and stacked them on top of each other and waltzed into the other room. “Hey, Tiff,” she said casually, as if there were no bad blood between the two of them. 

I followed at a more sedate pace, trying to sort out what Hay had just said but also observe the situation ahead of me. Tiff and Adam were standing near the door in a quick embrace—nothing like the steamy little scene Hay and Jordan had made earlier in nearly the same spot. Tiff just briefly rested her chin on Adam’s shoulder and he buried his head in her hair, and then they separated. “Hi, Haley,” Tiff said, polite but more than a little stiff. She plastered a fake smile on her face as she moved from Hay to me. “How’s it going, Byron?” 

I smiled gently at her. “It’s going,” I said generically. She was a little better at hiding her discomfort than Adam was, but it was right there if you knew what you were looking for. She wore less makeup than usual, and I’d never seen her not have her fingernails painted some crazy color or another. Even though it was maybe 95 outside, she wore long pants—not capris but long jeans—and an oversized shirt. There was also some tension written in the corners of her mouth and eyes. 

Haley set the snacks down on the end table that wasn’t covered in the Braddock Remote Museum. “Make yourselves at home,” she said casually, but she raised her shoulders as she spoke, telling me she was just a little bit anxious about everything after all.

Tiff took Hay at her word and sat down on the other end of the couch. Adam sat down next to her feet on the floor. I sat down next to the snacks—someone had to, after all. Hay looked at the set up and, not quite feeling the love enough to sit down right next to Tiff, perched on the edge of the oversized chair that faced the sofa. We all sat there silently for a moment and Hay looked at me pleadingly. I knew she’d read Adam and Tiff correctly enough to know that something was up, but I wasn’t sure exactly what she thought that might be. She mouthed the word _help_ and squeezed her hands together, but I shrugged helplessly at her. I had no idea what to do either.

Tiff looked around the room. “This is a nice house,” she observed, saving the day without knowing it. 

Hay smiled lightly. “We like it,” she said gratefully. 

Tiffany continued to glance around. “Although,” she said, her eyes falling to the end table, “I’m not sure how many electronic devices one room really needs.” 

Hay laughed. “You don’t know my mom,” she said, which didn’t seem to follow the conversation—but actually, was a logical statement in this case. “She must have been a Boy Scout in a previous life. Her motto is definitely ‘be prepared.’” This was true. Hay waved her hand in the direction of the collection Tiff continued to take in. “You never know when MacGyver might come by and find a use for one of these suckers, along with a pair of tweezers and a piece of chewing gum.” 

Adam looked intrigued. “MacGyver, huh?” he said. He got up on his knees and inspected the remotes also. “Do any of these actually work?” 

Hay nodded. “One for the stereo, TV, cable box and DVD player. Matt marked all of those with sparkly pink nail polish.” Adam raised an eyebrow and she shook her head. “I was going through a phase, okay? I couldn’t tell you what most of the rest of those are for.” She hopped up and started fiddling with the DVD player. 

We were quiet for a moment again, less awkwardly this time. After she set up the DVD, Hay returned to her chair. “Jordan got his roommate information this week. Did you two get yours yet?” she asked me and Adam. 

I nodded. “I’ve actually already talked to mine on the phone a couple times. His name is Julio Fuentes and he’s an engineering major, too.” 

“Julio?” Hay repeated. I shrugged. “He sounds…”

I glared at her. “If you say gay…”

Hay rolled her eyes. “Of course not, By. I was going to say…” she faded out again, but she started giggling. I had no idea what she was going to say, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to finish her sentence.” 

I was desperate for a topic change. “How about you, Adam?” 

He looked distracted. “I went online and found a guy. We got to talking about OU and decided to be roomies. His name’s Colin.” He put his hand up over his shoulder onto Tiff’s knee as he spoke. She looked uncomfortable with the conversation about him leaving town. I noticed she kept touching her stomach—she wasn’t being obvious about it, but she’d done it maybe five times since she’d sat down. I don’t even think _she_ noticed she was doing it. 

Hay didn’t notice. “You met your roommate online? Isn’t that kinda dangerous?” 

Adam looked over at Tiff, who shrugged. He was about to respond, but I replied first. “Hay, you have got to stop learning all of your life lessons from episodes of Degrassi,” I sighed. “Like letting a computer pick your roommate for you—like Jordan and I did—is any safer.” 

Hay giggled again. Tiff perked up. “What is Degrassi?” she asked. 

Before Haley could say anything, I spoke up again. “Degrassi is the worst television show in the history of the world,” I said. 

Tiff and Adam looked at each other again. “Oh, come on,” Hay exclaimed. “Don’t ever listen to By. He just doesn’t appreciate fine Canadian teen drama.”

I slouched back into my seat and took a handful of Munchies. “Bah, humbug,” I said. “That show isn’t realistic in any way. That’s my problem with it.” 

Hay raised her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? Like you aren’t Marco and I’m not Paige,” she said with another giggle. 

By this point, Adam was shaking his head. “Ignore the two of them when they get like this,” he told Tiff. She smiled, just a little. 

I ignored him. “If you’re Paige,” I told Hay, “then Jordan must be Spinner.” Hay looked disgusted. “Enough said.” 

Hay stuck out her tongue at me, not about to let me have the last word. “No, one last thing. Is Jeff Dylan?” She giggled briefly, and then her words caught up to her. “Speaking of Jeff,” she said as she glanced at the wall clock, “he’s late.” 

I looked at the clock, also, and sighed. “He said he would be here,” I noted. “Can we give him five more minutes? If he’s not here by then, I’ll go over and drag him out of his house.” 

Hay noticed my tone of voice. “What is with him these days?” she asked. 

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I had promised, back in the spring, not to tell anyone about Jeff’s troubles and I had faithfully kept that word. But even with that knowledge in my head, I still couldn’t explain Jeff’s behavior. 

Jeff only made me wait four out of those five minutes. Just as I was tying up my Converse to cross the street to his house, he rang the doorbell. “It’s for you,” Hay said, and since I was right inside the door anyway, I opened it. 

He might have been standing on the stoop, but he looked like his brain was on another planet. I stepped outside to meet him. “You made it,” I said, gathering him into a hug. 

Jeff hugged back, though not as enthusiastically as I would have liked. “I’m here,” he said. I waited for more of a response—maybe a “Can I leave now?”—but I knew he wasn’t in the mood for joking. Unlike Adam and Tiff, his style of dress wasn’t changed in any way, but he just didn’t look like his usual self, either. There were bags under his eyes and he just looked blank. 

I took Jeff’s hand and pulled him up the steps. Hay was nowhere in sight. Jeff looked at Adam and Tiff and, taking my statement from earlier literally, greeted them with a single word. “Hey,” he said. He sat down in Hay’s vacated chair. I eyed the seat and decided that I might fit into it with him. After all, I had promised to share a cushion with him. Jeff scooted to the side and put his head down on the padded arm of the chair. He kicked off his sandals and pulled his feet up in front of him. I sat down at the edge of the seat gingerly and squeezed one of his feet. 

Haley came back with a couple cans of soda. “Hey there, Jeff,” she said, genuinely smiling at him. He gave her a glance but barely responded, just raised one hand slightly as if it was too much effort to actually wave at her or to talk to her. Hay looked at me with concern in her eyes. I gave her my most helpless look and she raised her eyebrows. I saw Adam and Tiff look at each before they both turned to me. 

Jeff closed his eyes, ignoring all the eyes that were aimed our way. I was feeling more and more panicked each second everyone was looking at me. “Maybe we’d better start the movie?” I suggested. 

Hay was still holding the soda; she hadn’t moved since he’d greeted Jeff, but now she slowly unfroze. “Sure, in just a second.” She handed Adam and Tiff each a can. “By, Jeff, do you need anything? Drinks?” 

Jeff didn’t move, so I answered for both of us. “We’re fine for now. And if that changes, I know where the kitchen is.” I’m practically a member of the family at Hay’s house, so I’m used to helping myself to things in the kitchen. I wiggled my butt farther back into the seat until it reached the back of the chair. Jeff’s hip was poking into my side and he didn’t seem to even notice _that_. I shifted until my hips were at the same angle as his and wrapped one arm around his waist, leaning in his direction. 

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Still standing, she meandered over to the remote controls and picked up the one to the DVD player. The movie was already cued up on the television screen; she just had to hit play. “Any of you ever see this before?” she asked. 

“Clerks?” Tiff said, looking at the screen. “I think so. It’s in black and white, right?” 

“Yeah.” Hay curled up in the far corner of the couch, where I had been sitting earlier. Adam hopped up in between her and Tiffany and snuggled up to the latter. I noticed that he put his hand over her stomach, same as she’d been doing. 

Adam shook his head. “I’ve heard about it before, though, and I’ve seen a couple of the other movies in the same universe.” 

Hay sighed happily. “We own the whole series, so let me know if you ever want to borrow any of them. I just love them all.” 

She started the movie up, and we soon came to realize just how much she loved the movie and how many times she’d seen it. No matter how many death glares Adam shot her, Hay just couldn’t seem to stop reciting the dialogue along with the characters. I’m used to that out of her; she watches movies over and over again and can quote large chunks of a couple dozen or so. But Adam really hates it when someone talks during a movie, and I know she had to have been on his last nerve. Hay got so into watching the movie that she barely even noticed. 

After only about ten minutes, Tiff called a time-out. “Where’s your bathroom?” she asked Haley. 

Hay made a face. “If you need to wash your hands or get a tissue, there’s one on the other side of this wall,” she said, pointing to the wall with the television. “Otherwise, you have to go upstairs, second door on the left. The toilet down here is on the fritz.” 

I shifted in my seat and felt my knees creak; I hadn’t realized how tensed up my whole body was. “Again?” I said to Hay. She shrugged. Tiff ran upstairs and I eased my way off the chair. Jeff hadn’t moved at all since he’d sat down in the chair, but he had opened his eyes when the movie began. I knelt down in front of his face and placed one hand on his cheek. He turned his eyes to me, waiting for something profound to come out of my mouth. I didn’t have any words that grand—and even if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted to say them in front of Adam and Hay. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked him. 

He shook his head and went back to staring into outer space. I didn’t want to get up, but I did so anyway. I moved ridiculously slowly in the kitchen, digging through all the cans of cola, looking at all the best by dates, despite the fact that they all came from the same 24 pack. 

When I got back into the living room, Tiff was back on the couch and she and Haley were commenting on a scar Adam has on his right ankle. It’s actually two scars from two separate injuries: a small crescent that had required stitches when he was five, and two puncture marks from I don’t even remember what, several years later. Put together, though, they form a happy face smiling up at the world. “That’s just plain weird,” Hay observed. She turned to me as I tried to squish back into the chair with Jeff; despite the fact that he didn’t seem to mind sharing the seat with me, he wasn’t making it easy for me to get in with him. “Do you have any odd scars, By?” 

I shook my head. “I got a few scars, but they’re pretty boring.” 

Hay looked thoughtful. “What about Jordan? Obviously, I’ve seen his legs and arms, but is he hiding anything interesting under his clothes?” 

Adam looked at her like she was crazy. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised to hear that she’d never seen Jordan without his clothes, or if he was just annoyed with her in general over the movie dialogue. “Why don’t you ask all the girls who’ve actually seen him with his clothes off?” he asked snappishly. 

Hay recoiled like he’d hit her. She looked a little hurt, but hid it by reaching over for the remote. “Are we ready to start the movie back up?” she asked. 

No one answered her. Tiff put a soothing hand on Adam’s knee and threw him a glance. I could read her exactly: She knew just what was bothering him and didn’t want him taking it out on Haley. He settled down just a little bit but didn’t say anything. Hay pressed the remote control a little harder than necessary and then tossed it down the crack of the couch, between her and the arm. 

The movie started back up and even Hay was silent for a while, but sometimes she really just can’t help herself. Just a few minutes later we were watching a scene about a couple arguing over how many guys she’d gone down on. Hay piped up with what I knew must be lines from later in the same scene. “’My girlfriend’s sucked thirty-seven dicks.’ ‘In a row?’” I rolled my eyes fondly at her and Tiff snickered. Adam, on the other hand, was not amused. We managed to keep watching without bloodshed for now. 

At forty-five minutes, Hay paused the movie again. “What did you want to do for dinner?” she asked us. “I was thinking Thai food. We could get it delivered.” 

Tiff lost all color in her face and put her hand to her mouth. I was expecting her to get up and run out of the room, but she took a deep breath and slowly went back to normal. I glanced at Adam, who looked vaguely freaked out. I looked at Hay. “Not Thai, Hay,” I said, “Can we stick to something more…bland?” 

Hay pouted. “You love Thai food. You love _all_ food,” she said to me. She’d obviously missed Tiff’s reaction to her food choice. 

“I do,” I replied, “but maybe not this evening.” 

Tiff was about to say something but her expression changed as she looked over toward the door to the kitchen. “Aw. Haley, I didn’t know you had a cat. I always wanted a cat, but my mom wouldn’t let me have one.” 

A small calico cat stood in the doorframe, watching us curiously. After a moment, she walked in. Tiff made little noises with her lips, trying to get the cat’s attention, but the cat strutted past her without a glance. Haley looked amused. “Sorry. I have to warn you, Hermione has a total mind of her own.” 

“Hermione?” Adam asked. 

Hay shook her head. “Matt used to have an Emma Watson fetish,” she said. “Anyway, Hermione only has eyes for one person in the whole world.” As if to prove the point, Hermione jumped up onto the arm of the chair I was sitting in, the arm Jeff wasn’t resting his head on. She looked at me until I sighed and shifted, and then she climbed into my lap. Haley smiled. 

Adam gave me a sick little grin and I knew he was about to say something pretty inappropriate. I didn’t give him the opportunity. “I think I just have a really soft lap,” I observed. 

Jeff finally moved for the first time in about an hour. He shifted and stretched and turned over so he was facing me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and whispered in my ear, then settled his head onto my shoulder. I blushed scarlet from his words and everyone sat up and stared at me. Adam smirked. “I wanted to say something to embarrass you, but it looks like Jeff beat me to it.” 

Hay leaned forward with a silly look on her face. “What did he say?” she asked slyly. 

Jeff just closed his eyes and leaned onto me a little more. Hermione got jealous and stalked off, hopping up onto a shelf on the entertainment center, licking her wounds and her tail. I shrugged at Hay and the group as a whole. “That’s between me and Jeff,” I commented, wrapping my arms around him and resting my cheek on his head. 

“As far as I can see, there isn’t a whole lot between you and Jeff,” Adam teased. “Do you two need a blanket so you can grope in some semblance of privacy?” I didn’t dignify that with a reply. 

Hay returned to an earlier topic, knowing that she wasn’t going to get too much more of a rise out of me on the current subject. “So what about dinner?” she pressed. 

Adam looked at Tiff, who looked a little green again. I noticed that, although Hay and Adam had been eating the snacks, she hadn’t touched them. Adam went from being his usual self—throwing out dirty jokes left and right—to the more sedate guy he’d been most of the day. “Why don’t we finish the movie and then we can decide what to do for dinner?” he suggested. 

Hay shrugged her assent and picked the remote back up. “Before you start that, pass one of those snack bowls over here,” I called. She passed me the bowl of Munchies and then the movie came back. Hay shoveled popcorn into her mouth at an alarming rate—I think she was a little hungrier than she wanted to admit, hence her insistence on dinner. 

The movie had only been back on for a few minutes before Adam started getting annoyed again. The popcorn was quickly gone and then Hay was back to her old tricks. Her eyes were so thoroughly glued to the screen that she was completely oblivious to the irritation growing right next to her. Adam balled his hands up as Hay continued to spoil lines. 

Shortly before the end of the film, Hay said the words ‘thirty-seven’ again with a laugh. Adam had had enough. He turned to Haley and looked at her, distracting her attention from the television screen. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend how many girls have sucked his dick?” he snapped. 

It pretty much came out of nowhere in Hay’s eyes. Her mouth formed an O for a moment and then she shook herself. “What?” she said as she clicked the movie to a pause. 

“You heard me.” 

Hay frowned. “I heard you just fine, Adam Pike,” she said. I could tell how irritated she was because she only whips out the last name when she’s thoroughly annoyed. “What I wanted to know was what you meant.” 

For the first time all evening, Jeff sat up straight, unwrapping his arms from my neck and instead placing one hand on my shoulder where his head had been. “Uh-oh,” he said slowly, in a very soft voice. 

I disentangled myself from Jeff and looked at him; he looked as if he had slept through everything, although I knew he’d been awake. His eyes had that bleary, sleep-filled look, and the rest of his face was slack. “Yup,” I replied morosely, not sure I liked where this conversation was headed. 

Tiff definitely didn’t like it either. “Maybe that’s a conversation that’s better had between you and Jordan,” she suggested to Haley. 

Hay looked like she wanted to cry. “Maybe I will,” she said defiantly, flashing angry eyes at Adam rather than Tiff. 

She picked up the remote and I slid out of my seat, pointing up the stairs. “Don’t wait the movie on my account,” I said. Hay was too frustrated and annoyed to even reply. I didn’t see her start the movie back up, but I did hear it start playing. I looked back at her through the doorway and I could see she was doing that thing where she was willing herself so hard not to cry that she didn’t even notice that tears were already falling. 

I hadn’t realized so little of the movie was left. By the time I was washing my hands after using the bathroom, two sets of feet were coming up the stairs. I was just about to open the door to let the next user in when I heard the beginnings of a conversation. 

“I’m sorry about Adam being an ass just now,” Tiff said in a low voice that I barely caught. “You haven’t been crying, have you?” 

That’s how I knew she was talking to Haley. “No,” Hay lied. 

Tiff plowed on. “I’m not going to make excuses for him or say he was right in any way, but he’s under a lot of stress right now. He’s…” she paused and I imagined that she was trying to find the right words. “Let’s just say I’ve put him in an awkward spot.” 

Hay snorted. “Right,” she said sarcastically. She banged on the door to the bathroom. “Hurry up, By!” she shouted at me. 

I dried my hands a second time and went to open the door but Tiffany went on. I didn’t want to interrupt any reconciliation attempt the two might be having, so I pulled my hand back from the door. “You guys only have one bathroom here?” she asked. 

“Aside from the broken one downstairs, there’s one in my parents’ room,” Hay replied. “I’m going to use that one, but I need to grab something from here first.” She groaned loudly. “Ugh, my stomach is so upset right now. I shouldn’t have eaten all that popcorn. I could just barf.” 

There was a brief pause and then Tiff spoke seriously. “Every time I’m near you, you’re always ready to throw up,” she said. “Any chance you’re pregnant?” 

I sucked in my breath. I knew the answer to that was a big fat no and I waited for Hay to exclaim her innocence but instead she sighed. “Why does everyone think I should be pregnant?” she asked. I was so surprised by her statement that I could only guess how Tiffany felt about that. There was a pause and then Hay restated her position. “No, I’m definitely not pregnant. First, I’m on my rag right now. Second, Jordan and I have not been doing anything that would result in pregnancy anyway.” 

“Oh,” Tiff said, and she sounded…disappointed? The reason for that became clear in a moment. “It’s just that I just found out _I’m_ pregnant and I thought if you were too, maybe we’d have something in common.” 

This was met by complete silence for a while. “You’re pregnant?” Haley finally echoed. 

“I found out on Thursday,” Tiff said quietly. 

Hay muttered something that sounded like, “Well, that explains Adam, then,” before she returned to Tiffany. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. It didn’t come across as rude, just matter-of-fact. 

Tiff clearly took it the way it was meant. “I don’t really have any female friends, so I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. Adam, well, he’s a wreck, and I definitely can’t talk to him about this the way I would a girl friend. He keeps telling me it’s all my choice to make and typical guy stuff like that.” 

Hay drew in a very deep audible breath. “I guess, if you ever needed to talk, you could give me a call. At the very least, I could be an objective listener.” There was another quiet moment and then Haley said, “Is this where we’re supposed to hug?” 

Tiff actually laughed. “Let’s not push our luck,” she said. 

I decided it was safe to open the bathroom door. One look at Hay told me that, not only did she know I’d heard all of that, but she also knew I’d purposely waited until they were done. But she wasn’t about to tell that to Tiff. “Oh, my Lord, By,” she sniped as she pushed past me into the bathroom. “What the fuck were you doing in here that took you that long?” She reached into a decorative box on the counter and returned with a tampon. “Never mind that. I do _not_ want to know. Just scoot out of the way; you’ve been making Tiff hold it for forever now.” 

Both Hay and I exited the room and let Tiff through. “Thanks, Haley,” she said. 

Hay waited until the bathroom door was shut and then called back after Tiff. “Don’t mention it,” she said, and then scooted down into her parents’ bedroom. 

Adam was stretched out on the couch when I came back, trying to goad Jeff into a conversation and getting absolutely nowhere. “I told you back during spring break, man. Red Sox all the way to the Series. Now the Dodgers, they’re actually doing decent this year, but there’s no way they can beat the Sox.” Jeff had leaned back over the arm of the chair while I was upstairs, and while he was actually looking at Adam as he spoke, he didn’t appear to be following the conversation. “Yo, Schafer, you listening to me?” 

“I don’t blame him if he’s not,” I said breezily as I sat down on the other arm of the chair. “You and the Sox. That’s all you ever talk about these days,” I lied. “Aren’t they pretty much hopeless? When was the last time they won the Series?” I smiled at Adam, who actually tried a smile back. Baseball was, in his mind, a great distraction from his troubles. “Is there a team out there that’s never won the Series? I think I’ll root for them.” 

Jeff reached over and pried my hand that was closer to him off the couch and squeezed it. “How about the Cubs?” he asked, speaking the first full sentence he’d said aloud since he’d come inside the house. “They last won in…what was it?” He looked up at me and while he wasn’t smiling or anything, he did appear to be more than half-awake for the first time all evening. 

Adam finished Jeff’s sentence. “1908.” 

“1908,” I repeated, never taking my eyes off Jeff’s. “Sounds good to me. I got a thing for lost causes.” 

“Lost causes,” Jeff said with a sigh. “Like me.” 

I put a hand on each side of his face. “Never,” I promised him. “You’re only lost when everyone gives up on you. I’ll never do that.” 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Adam shifting uncomfortably. I suddenly got what he meant when he said that he could see how I felt about Jeff. I’d said ‘I love you’ before because of what Adam said and because of the way Jeff usually ends phone calls with a generic ‘love ya.’ But for the first time, I thought that I might actually be able to say it to Jeff and mean it. I felt like he was slipping away recently, and I’d realized how much that hurt. It hurt more than if it were one of my brothers and sisters. It hurt more than if it were Hay. And I’d told all of them, at some point or another, how much I loved them. (Yes, even Nick.) But I had yet to say it to Jeff. 

But this was definitely not the right time. I couldn’t say it in front of Adam, especially the way he’d poured his heart out earlier. He hadn’t said so, but even though he said he wasn’t looking for love this summer, I had the feeling he was jealous of what Jordan had with Haley. He might not have wanted to exchange ‘miss you mores’ in an extremely sickening fashion, but I could understand being jealous of the goodbye kiss and ‘love you.’ I was a little bit jealous of that myself, to be honest. Especially with Jeff the way he was right now. 

Tiff came back into the living room as Jeff answered. “You say that now,” he said to me, “but we’ll see how easily that kind of promise is broken.” 

I kissed the top of Jeff’s head, not replying to his statement. There wasn’t much I _could_ say to it; only time would tell. Adam sat up at one end of the couch and Tiff sat by his side. “You got Jeff talking!” she said, as if I had performed some kind of miracle. 

“Yeah,” I replied, “but he’s talking crazy talk over here.” I slid down into the seat next to him and put an arm around his shoulder. 

Tiff looked at Adam yet again. “This is one of those times when I should ignore them, isn’t it?” she asked. 

He took her hand and kissed it. “Oh yeah.” 

Hay thundered down the stairs—for someone so petite, sometimes she moves like a small elephant. She stood in the doorway and took in the scene. Without a word she strode through the door, stopping in front of Jeff and me. She ruffled Jeff’s hair and grinned at him and then perched on the arm of the chair where I had been sitting until a moment ago. Adam let go of Tiff’s hand and took in the three of us sharing one seat. “So, are we still thinking dinner? Tiffany, you hungry?” 

It was Haley’s turn to turn slightly green. Tiff noticed and shook her head. “Not particularly.” 

Adam looked concerned. “You need to eat,” he said. 

Hay looked Tiff over and shook her head. “Don’t _not_ eat on my account. If you’re hungry, feel free to order something. I’ll eat later if I feel like it.” 

Adam looked from her to Tiffany, confused. “Tiff?” he said. 

She shook her head again. “I’m not hungry right yet, Adam. Don’t worry, though. I’ll eat something eventually.” 

Jeff was following the conversation, confusion clear onto his face. He turned to me and gave me a questioning glance. I shook my head at him. “Later, okay?” I whispered. He nodded. 

Hay jumped off the chair and moved to the end of the couch with the remotes. She flipped the television off and the stereo on. “Give me a minute here,” she said. “I have to change CDs before we can listen to anything. The one that’s in there now is something Vanessa gave me. It’s depressing as hell.” 

Jeff seemed intrigued. He leaned forward in his seat, coming out of my grasp. “On a scale of one to ten, how depressing is it?” he asked. 

Hay frowned. “Give me some reference points,” she demanded. 

He thought for a moment. “One is your usual la-la-la self. Five, maybe you need some Prozac. Ten is slit your wrists.” 

I turned to him, shocked. “Jeff!” I exclaimed. 

He wrinkled his brow. “What?!” 

“I don’t think that’s funny.” 

“Who said it’s supposed to be?” 

The other three had been watching this warily. I saw Hay and Tiff exchange a glance this time, while Adam just scrunched up his face—he could see this wasn’t going to lead anywhere good. “Byron,” Tiff said tentatively after a minute, “you didn’t cut your wrists, did you?” 

I took a deep breath, not sure how to answer that. Of course I hadn’t. But I was afraid that if I pointed that out, everyone would know the truth. 

“No, I did,” Jeff said after a moment. He looked on me angrily. “Are you happy now?” he asked. I shook my head, but Jeff wasn’t watching me anymore. He jumped out of his seat and bent down to pick up his sandals. Without stopping to put them on, he ran out the door without a backward glance. 

Everyone else was looking at me. “Jeff, wait,” I called. I was wearing my socks without shoes but I didn’t think about that. I just ran out the door after him. Despite my track experience, he’d had the element of surprise on his side and as such he’d gotten quite a head start on me. By the time I reached the sidewalk, he was across the street. “Jeff,” I called again. 

He ignored me and cut across the lawn to his house. I flew across the street, without even checking traffic, desperate to catch up to him, but it wasn’t meant to be. By the time I made it to his house, cutting across his lawn in a brand new pair of white socks, he’d made it inside and locked the door behind him. 

I rang the doorbell, hoping his parents were home, but no one answered. Both of their cars were gone and I realized that Jeff must be home alone. I banged on the door. “Jeff, please let me in,” I shouted, but I knew he wasn’t going to. I’d been willing him silently all evening to show some emotion and now that he’d finally done it, I wasn’t very happy about it. 

I wanted to go straight back home and into my bed, but I’d left my shoes at the Braddocks’. At the very least, I needed to stop back at Hay’s to pick them up, but I really wasn’t looking forward to three pairs of eyes staring at me. 

I guess I should have been pleased, then, when I got back to Hay’s and Adam and Tiff had left. “Tiff suddenly decided she was hungry after all,” Hay said quietly when I came in the front door. She was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, my shoes sitting in front of her. “But I think that she just didn’t want things to be all awkward.” She stood up and took me in. “You heading home, or do you want to come upstairs and have a bitch session with me?” 

If Tiff and Adam had still been there, I would have definitely left. But I looked at Haley and she looked as exhausted as I felt. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

Hay’s bed is twin sized, but we both stretched across it on our backs, side by side. We were silent for about five minutes before she started talking. “How long have you known?” she asked. 

I drew in a deep breath. “You’re going to have to be way more specific, Hay.” 

She rolled over and looked at me. “Jeff,” was all she said. 

“You mean about him threatening to slit his wrists?” All the response I got was her looking at me like I was a moron. “Since spring break. He didn’t want me to tell anyone and I respected that.” 

She pouted, not her usual cheerful but manipulative pout, but a legitimately unhappy face. “I’m not just anyone,” she pointed out. 

I rolled over too, so we were facing each other. “No, you aren’t. You’re my best friend. But you’re also Jeff’s friend. If he had wanted you to know, he would have told you.” 

Hay conceded the point. “I just don’t like it,” she said finally. “We’ve never kept secrets from each other before.” 

I laughed bitterly and she gave me a suspicious look. “You know that’s not true,” I said. She looked blank and I laughed again, more kindly this time. “Gay,” I said, pointing at myself. I then pointed to her but didn’t say a word. I knew she got it. 

Hay grinned in spite of herself and shook her head. “Yeah, okay, you’ve got a point.” She shifted her weight and sighed. “Well, I know about it now…” She faded out. 

I sighed back. “There’s not too much to tell you. I just know he held the blade to his wrist and threatened to cut. His dad called the cops and he ended up hospitalized for a couple weeks. He’s been seeing a therapist ever since.” Hay made a sympathetic noise. “I think he struggles all the time with some unseen demons.” 

She reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know things will work out, By. Just stick with him.” 

“That’s the plan,” I said. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I love him, Hay. It’s taken me a while to see it, but I do.” 

“I know,” she said soothingly. She returned the squeeze and let go of my hand. She started to speak again, then bit her tongue. 

“What?” I asked, instantly suspicious. 

Haley shook her head. “I was going to say something, but you’re right about how some things aren’t meant to be repeated.” She pulled her knees up towards her chest in the fetal position. “How about another topic, something I know you know about: Adam and Tiffany. I know you heard what she said while you were camping out in the bathroom.” 

“Yup.” I rubbed my temples with my thumbs. “Actually, Adam told me earlier today.” 

“That whole thing sucks,” she said, aptly summarizing the situation. “What are they going to do?” 

“I don’t know,” I said, “and I don’t think they know either.” Hay nodded. “I’m going to be there for Adam and be a sounding board if he needs it, but at this point, I refuse to take on any more of anyone else’s problems. I got enough of my own to worry about.” 

Hay grabbed her knees and pulled them tighter into her chest, giving herself a hug. “I know what you mean,” she said quietly. 

I watched her for a moment. “What are you talking about? Things seem to be going well for you over all. What problems do you have?” 

She didn’t answer that directly. “What’s this about Jordan and other girls that Adam was talking about?” she asked instead. 

I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. “He was just mad because you kept ruining bits of the movie for him,” I said. 

Hay pressed on. “Yes, but he wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.” 

I felt trapped in the one place that I had never wanted to be: between my brother and my best friend. “I think Tiff was right,” I said diplomatically. “This is a conversation that is best had between you and Jordan.” 

Hay’s eyes were moist. “I know that,” she said quietly, “but I just need to know what’s going on. I feel like I’ve been missing some giant piece of the puzzle of my life. Jordan’s not cheating on me, is he?” 

“Hay…”

“I have to know,” she repeated. 

“No, he is not cheating on you, to my knowledge,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t stop until I at least confirmed that. “I only hear him talk about two things these days: college and you.” The conversation was so awkward that I turned flat onto my back as an excuse to break eye contact. 

It didn’t work. She hiked up onto her elbows and leaned over me. “But he’s talked about other girls before,” she said. 

“Yes,” I confirmed, “Over the past eighteen years, he has referred to other girls once or twice.” 

“Byron, please stop being obtuse.” 

I covered my eyes briefly. “You are putting me in a very awkward spot,” I told her as I lowered my hands. She just looked at me, genuine sadness in her eyes. “Okay, look, I’m not going to pass along gossip. I’ll give you what facts I have, but it’s not as if Jordan I were super-close during the time period I’m covering.” Hay looked marginally happier, but I wasn’t sure she would stay that way. “When they were fourteen, Adam and Jordan started a contest. They made up this scorecard with all the things you can do with a girl leading up to sex. Sort of like the bases that you’re so fond of, only a lot more of them. I think there was something like 16 different things on the list, and each one had a point value.” 

Hay’s mouth was hanging open. “Why would they do that?” she asked. 

“Because they were fourteen? In any case, for a couple years, you could go into their bedroom and there were three scores on a chalkboard. Whenever they did something with a girl—even if they’d done that thing before—they added more points onto their tally. For the first year or so, Adam was way in the lead.” 

Haley wrinkled her nose. “You said there were three scores?” she said. 

This part was worse than telling her about Jordan. “They put my name down and gave me a negative score. As time went on and I refused to play, they kept lowering my score. After we started hanging out all the time, they erased me, probably because they thought that I was actually way ahead of them.” She shook her head. “Anyway, not long before we turned sixteen, Jordan pulled ahead in the score, and for the entire rest of the time they kept playing, Jordan was ‘winning.’”

Hay rolled over onto her own back, probably so I couldn’t see her expression. “So Jordan’s been with a lot of girls,” she summarized. 

“I didn’t say that,” I told her. “All I know for certain is that he’s definitely done a lot of the things on the list. And for a while, he bragged about it quite a bit. But he stopped keeping track and stopped talking about it right around the start of 2003. This part I can’t verify, but I feel confident enough to say it anyway: it was right around that time that he started to have feelings for you. It’s like the contest and other girls became unimportant in comparison to you.” 

She didn’t seem to have heard the last part. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked. 

I didn’t answer that because I didn’t _know_. “Well, did you tell him everything you’ve ever done?” I asked, turning it back on her. 

That made her even more distressed. “I haven’t done anything, though. You know that and he knows that.” 

I sighed again. “The last thing I do know is that he hasn’t…done that final step. That’s something you two have in common. Maybe someday you’ll both be ready to lose your virginity together.” 

She was silent. “I don’t know,” she said and at first, I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I don’t know about that,” she repeated. “I don’t feel like I have the right to that anymore.”

I sat up and stared at her. “Are you saying that you don’t think you’re a virgin?” She shrugged. “Haley. Virginity is something you give someone, not something that someone takes from you. You didn’t give that to anyone, so you can still say you’re a virgin.” 

She sniffled for a moment but didn’t reply to that statement. “I just don’t know,” she said again, but the look on her face was different this time. “I don’t know if I can trust Jordan after this. I mean, I don’t have a problem with him having girls go down on him in the past. Just the fact that he totally and completely lied about it.” 

I shrugged at her. “I can’t answer that for you, although I will point out that, until Adam said that, you were one-hundred percent team Jordan,” I said frankly. “You really need to talk to him. And, because I know you, I’d like to point out that it will not help things if you go in looking to pick a fight.” 

Hay managed a small smile in response to that. “But I’m itching for a really good fight, now that I’m no longer enemies with anyone,” she joked, but then her face sagged. “Maybe I should just have taken my mom up on her offer,” she sighed. 

“What offer was that?” I was still leaning over her in a semi-menacing manner, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

“She wanted to take me to the gyno and get some birth control.” Hay scrunched up her face. “You know my mom. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.” 

“And would you having sex with Jordan be a best or a worst?” 

She actually laughed. “By. We’re talking about my mom here. In her mind, I’m still ten.” I was going to reply to that but she turned serious again. “You know, I can’t say that I’m _thankful_ about what happened to me back then or anything. But I’m thankful for who it changed me into.” 

I shifted so that I was slightly lower, on one elbow. “What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked her, genuinely curious. 

Hay’s brown eyes shone up at me. “I won’t say I was on a crash course when I was younger, but there wasn’t much I wouldn’t try if someone offered me the opportunity. I think that, if I hadn’t been…you know…I might have been a little slutty. Not stealing someone’s boyfriend and getting pregnant slutty,” she paused and I rolled my eyes, knowing she was referring to her favorite television show again. “But I definitely would not be seventeen and not have done anything. And I don’t just mean sex either.” She smiled a little bit. “You and your rules made me want to be a little more cautious in life. I think that if you hadn’t been around, I probably would have smoked some cigarettes and a few joints and probably had sex in the back seat of some guy’s car this weekend. Instead, I had a picnic with Jordan and Matt on the living room floor yesterday.” Her grin became bigger. “I think that if Jordan and I had hooked up in that alternate universe, I’d be just another notch on his bedpost.” 

“A few more points on his scorecard,” I added. 

“Exactly. And while me getting raped had a lot to do with that, I could have totally gone the other way and become a crazy boyfriend stealing whore, too. But you’re the reason I didn’t do that. So thank you.” 

I lay back down beside her and enveloped her in a hug and she closed her eyes. I could almost have fallen asleep like that—although I am much more careful about where I fall asleep since the debacle at Jeff’s—but she popped her eyes back open and looked at me. “I know now’s not a great time,” she said seriously, “but you never did tell me what happened with you and Jeff on Independence Day.” 

I should have seen it coming; to be honest, I was really surprised that she had waited several weeks to bring it up. I propped myself up and returned the look. “Do you want a video, Hay, or will a timeline of events do?” 

She started to really smile. “There’s a video? Ooh, kinky.” 

I ignored that. I’d promised to keep her updated on my (alleged) sex life some weeks back, something I’d regretted almost instantly. “Well,” I said, stretching out a pause until she sat up and leaned forward. “I just…” I knew I was blushing and I couldn’t get any words out after that. 

Hay inspected me. “Must have been amazing to get this type of reaction out of you,” she said. I just nodded. “Well, since you seemed to have lost the power of speech, how about we play Twenty Questions?” I shook my head at her but she pressed on. “Did you guys take your shirts off? How about your pants?” I didn’t reply but instead looked away and she took that as all the answer she needed. She made a high-pitched squeal. “C’mon, By, how far did it go?” 

I found my voice. “Give me a break, Hay.” She just cocked her head and gave me a look that said she was never going to let this go. “Okay, okay. One detail and that’s it.” I leaned over, as if there were someone else who might hear. “I’m not at thirty-seven, but I can start a count, okay?” 

“Thirty-seven,” Hay said, sounding amazed. “Do me a favor. Try to keep your count lower than that, okay?” She grinned. 

“You do me a favor, then. Try to go easy on my brother when you talk over his past with him, hmm? Don’t tear him a new asshole or anything.” 

Hay wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure I can completely promise that. All I can say for certain,” she said, more relaxed than when the topic had first come up earlier but not as calm as when she’d been just a few seconds before, “is that I won’t give him any worse than he deserves.” 

The problem was that that was exactly what I was afraid of.


End file.
